Cate Blanchett and Zar Amir-Ebrahimi discuss Sundance film ‘Shayda’ and the Iranian perspective: “It’s important to let women talk about themselves and make films about their own female journey.”

A few weeks after Zar Amir-Ebrahimi was awarded best actress at Cannes for her performance as journalist Arezoo Rahimi in a crime novel Holy SpiderThe Iranian-French actor flew to Melbourne, Australia to take part in another urgent story by an Iranian filmmaker: Noora Niasari’s feature film debut Shayda.

The film, which has been described as a “love letter to mothers and daughters everywhere” and opened the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance last week, stars Amir-Ebrahimi as Shayda, a brave Iranian mother who finds refuge with her six children in an Australian women’s shelter. year-old daughter (played by Selina Zahednia) after escaping an abusive relationship.

Based on Niasari’s own mother, who fled an arranged marriage to raise her daughter in Australia. Shayda takes place during the Persian New Year as the mother-daughter duo seek solace in Nowruz rituals and new beginnings, but when her estranged husband re-enters their lives, Shayda’s path to freedom is jeopardized.

For Amir-Ebrahimi and Cate Blanchett, who are producing the film via her Dirty Films banner, the story is exactly the kind of project they both want to be a part of.

“I’m not that interested in a comedy or anything that doesn’t really change anything in our society,” admits Amir-Ebrahimi. “Life is short and if I can make two films a year that make a difference or change this world, that’s important.”

Blanchett, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress yesterday for her role in the film tarand Andrew Upton (her husband and Dirty Films co-founder) got the project from producer Vincent Sheehan, with whom Blanchett had worked Little fishes in the year 2005.

“Vincent and Noora have evolved Shayda for some time and they brought it to us towards the end of the development process to secure financing and key actors,” Blanchett told Deadline. “We knew this story was strong and had a perspective unlike any Australian film we’ve seen before. It’s a very personal and domestic setting, but the story Noora drew from it had a wider cultural resonance, we think. Noora’s Short Films [17 Years and a Day, Tâm] has proven herself to be a deeply rooted filmmaker with an emotionally rich perspective.”

Working with Niasari, says Amir-Ebrahimi, was an “incredible” experience. “Everything about this project happened so quickly and the whole editing process took about six months, and now we’re in Sundance, which is great,” she says. “I really appreciate Noora’s courage as a filmmaker and as a person who has had this experience. It was such a smooth shoot for such a sensitive story.”

Niasari generously provided Amir-Ebrahimi with footage of Niasari’s mother retelling her own story, which helped Amir-Ebrahimi create the character in her mind before she came to Australia. The actor, who got to know Niasari’s mother throughout the process, says the director was generous with her actors, giving them a lot of confidence and room to improvise while also being “really protective” of young Zahednia.

“I think the hardest part for me was sometimes wanting to protect Noora as well,” says Amir-Ebrahimi. “Sometimes I didn’t want to ask questions because I kind of tried to make my way without being able to ask her so many questions about her private life. But Noora handled everything well.

In September, while the film was in the editing room, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in Iran after being arrested by Tehran’s vice police for allegedly violating the country’s strict rules requiring women to cover their hair must cover. Her death sparked outrage in the country, and since then more than 500 people have been killed in Iran as women fight for their rights amid ongoing protests.

Both Blanchett and Amir-Ebrahimi admit that this shaped their perspective shayda because Iran is in the middle of its biggest revolution since the year of his birth.

“The current situation in Iran is terrible and is moving into darker waters for women every day,” said Blanchett. “In Noora’s skilled hands, ShaydaAlthough firmly established in Australia in the 1990s, domestic personal problems resonate with an urgent cultural conversation.

Amir-Ebrahimi adds: “This violence against women is everywhere. But in Iran, the system does not mean that you have your basic rights as we know them now. Women in Iran are second class citizens under the law and therefore protection against domestic violence is low and even divorce or living arrangements are ten times more complicated than in any other country.

“Now when I see Iranian women and someone like Noora’s mother and how she is strong and made even stronger by this story and how she saved her life and her child’s life, I really appreciate it.”

She adds, “It’s important to let women talk about themselves and to make these types of films about their own female journey.”

For Amir-Ebrahimi, playing this type of character is therapeutic for her and helps her come to terms with her own relationship with her homeland. The Iranian-born woman fled to France in 2008 after being threatened with detention when an alleged sex tape of hers was leaked in Iran, although she insisted she was not on the tape. The incident left her persona non grata in Iran, and she tells Deadline that she has spent the past decade writing her story, which she hopes will one day come to light.

“The kind of characters I play help me to find my way as a person and maybe even become a better person,” she says.

For Blanchett, she wants the public to have a nuanced perspective on the issues Shayda throw up.

“The strongest and most lasting impact of dramatic storytelling is not ‘goods and bads’, but the dark spaces of motivation and desire and the more complex understanding of social and cultural power relations. Noora’s work has a clear moral compass and simple instructive melodrama. Shayda is tender and heartbreakingly vulnerable in its exploration of a falling family that hopefully all people of every gender and culture can relate to and understand.